On the 21st of February of 2015, the Pope sent a letter to Gustavo Vera, a friend and politician in Buenos Aires, in which he expressed his fear that the surge of drug trafficking in Argentina would produce a situation of addiction and violence in the country similar to that of Mexico (“ojalá estemos a tiempo de evitar la mexicanización”, hopefully we still have time to avoid the Mexicanization). The letter was subsequently published on the website of La Alameda, an Argentine nongovernmental organization headed by Vera, which seeks to curb organized crime. Mexico’s Foreign Minister, Jose Antonio Meade, said he planned to send a note of protest to the pontiff over the term ‘Mexicanization’, but the Argentinian Government was typically silent over the matter.

Mauricio Macri, who won the elections for the Presidency of Argentina on November 22nd 2015, breaking the 12 year hegemony of the Kirchners and their party the FpV, 1 blamed 10 years of government inaction and complicity for the spread of drug trafficking in Argentina.

Prior to the economic crisis of 2001/2002, though Argentina was used as a transhipment point for South American sourced cocaine to Europe, local drug consumption was relatively small. However, the crisis increased poverty and weakened Argentinean institutions, making the country a soft target for organised crime. The election of Uribe in Colombia in 2002 and the subsequent militarization of the war on drugs caused the Colombian drug cartels to move some of their operations to Argentina, as did the Mexican drug cartels four years later when the newly elected president Felipe Calderón sent 6,500 federal troops to the state of Michoacán to fight the La Familia Michoacana drug cartel. Calderón continued to escalate his anti-drug campaign, using up to 45,000 troops in addition to state and federal police forces. In the so-called “balloon effect”, the drug cartels moved operations south to Argentina, whose ample Atlantic coasts, poorly controlled borders and patchy aerial surveillance made it an ideal hub. As the availability of drugs increased in Argentina, domestic consumption grew rapidly, in particular of paco (cocaine paste), a waste product produced in the manufacture of cocaine, highly addictive and sold very cheaply.

Register of drug deals in the district. Trend between 2010-2014 (Percentages of households): Between 2010 and 2014 there was a surge in the perception of the existence of drug dealing in the districts. In this period, drug sales in the districts increased by 50%, reaching 45% of all urban households. The trend had a sharp surge between 2010 and 2011 and it increased steadily during the subsequent years. Source: ESDA-BICENTARIO 2010-2016

Argentina proved a fertile territory for the drug cartels not only because of weak institutions and favourable geography, but also for two further important reasons. Firstly, in 2008 the Argentinian Goverment of the Kirchners made money laundering legal, passing law 26.479 which allowed Argentinian residents to bring foreign currency into the country without having to declare the origin of the funds. Secondly, the Government turned a blind eye to the importation of large quantities of chemicals used in the production of narcotics, principally ephedrine (methamphetamine or “meth”), GBH (liquid ecstasy) and ethyl chloride (“poppers” or “lanzaperfume”). There have been allegations that this was done as a favour to Argentina’s domestic pharmaceutical companies, which were a major source of the Kirchners’ campaign financing.

The rapid increase in drug trafficking and drug consumption during the Kirchner presidencies was accompanied by a surge in cases of drug addiction and increasing crime levels. Paco rapidly became the curse of Argentina’s urban poor, its use spreading like wildfire particularly in the slums of the Province of Buenos Aires. According to provincial government reports, an astonishing 50% of the inhabitants of some of the “villa miserias” (shanty towns) have used or are currently addicted to the drug, which systematically destroys the nervous system. Users quickly become skeletal and ravaged – los muertos vivientes, the living dead- resorting to crime, violence and prostitution to feed their habits. Enormous numbers die in short order.

Perception of crime in the districts by socio-economic status according to registers of drug deals, 2010-2014. (Percentages of households). The analysis by socio-economic status reveals that the perception of crime in the districts is lower in upper-class residential areas. The perception of crime is significantly higher in areas with drug dealing, which occurs primarily in slums and other poor areas. Below the bars there are four sections. From left to right: Upper-middle class areas, Lower-middle class areas, Lower class vulnerable areas, Slums. Reference colours: Light blue: no records of drug dealing. Dark blue: areas with records of drug dealing. Source: ESDA-BICENTARIO 2010-2016

At the other end of the scale, criminal elements both foreign and local fought to control the lucrative manufacture and trade in drugs, resulting in incidents like the “Triple Crimen” of 2008, in which three pharmaceutical executives with ties to the narcotrafficking cartels were tortured and murdered. The perpetrators of the murder were subsequently caught and imprisoned; they claimed that Aníbal Fernández (minister of Justice at the time) was the mastermind of the crime.

The same Anibal Fernandez, subsequently promoted to be President Cristina Fernandez’ Chief of the Cabinet of Ministers, declared last October in an official government statement that Argentina “es país de tránsito de la droga… no tiene los niveles (de consumo) que muchos quieren hacer creer; no hay producción” (is a drug conduit, without high levels of drug consumption as many believe, without production), a sentiment not generally shared by the population. The prestigious business university UCA (Catholic University of Argentina) released a study in early 2015 saying that drug sales had increased 50% from 2010 to 2014, and that eight out of 10 Argentineans believe drug trafficking and drug abuse are a “serious problem” in the country. In the televised debates between the candidates for President prior to the Presidential elections this year, one of the four areas in which the candidates were asked to explain their policies was Crime (the others were economic and human development, education and childhood, and the strengthening of democratic institutions). All the candidates highlighted the fight against the drug trade as key to reducing crime levels.

For Mauricio Macri, mayor of Buenos Aires City and leader of the Cambiemos (Let’s Change) party, who won the Presidenctial election and will take office on December 10th, the imperatives for Argentina are to “dar la pelea a la inseguridad y al narcotráfico, y salir del cepo” (fight crime and drug trafficking, and end exchange controls). He set out the details of his program to fight crime and drug trafficking in a speech to the Club Brown on the night of 6th December. His key proposals are to dramatically increase police presence in the neighbourhoods, to improve frontier control and monitoring of Argentine airspace, to create a new Agency to fight organized crime, and to reform Sedronar, the Government Agency charged with responsibility to fight drug addiction. Hopefully his focus and determination will go a long way to preventing any Mexicanization of Argentina.

Notes

Néstor Kirchner was President from 25 May 2003 – 10 December 2007. He was succeeded by his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who served out two Presidential terms, the first from 10 December 2007 to 10 December 2011, the second from 10 December 2011 to 10 December 2012. They both represented the Frente para la Victoria (FpV, Victory Front) wing of the Partido Justicialista (Justice Party, the largest component of the Peronist movement).